Wide-eyed, looking like you're under a curse
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: Willas Tyrell is thirty-seven years old when he meets his sister's best friend for the first time. He's got as much grey as brown in his hair, can't walk without crutches, and he has a nine year old daughter who takes up every minute of time he doesn't spend chasing down priceless artworks and antiques across the city and beyond. For jadeddiva.


Willas Tyrell is thirty-seven years old when he meets his sister's best friend for the first time. He's got as much grey as brown in his hair, can't walk without crutches, and he has a nine year old daughter who takes up every minute of time he doesn't spend chasing down priceless artworks and antiques across the city and beyond.

He meets Sansa Stark at a fundraiser for Aster's school, a gala night at the National Museum of Modern Art, and she's trying her best to encourage people into the side room that the museum set up for a display of art by the kids - almost all of it is by the seniors, but Willas knows for a fact that there's a piece in there by Aster. He doesn't know what, because Azzie refused to tell him and made him swear not to find out through her teachers. She has a flair for the artistic from both sides, so he's been looking forward to seeing whatever she produced for weeks, and while he does love the museum and has been looking forward to their new display of Post-Impressionist portraiture, he's been looking forward to seeing Azzie's work more.

The stuff the kids have made is… It's different. Good different, but definitely not something that your standard rich kid artist is going to produce.

Then again, these aren't your standard rich kid artists.

There's a huge canvas triptych on the far wall, for example, painted with what look like frequency lines - they all start in jagged neons on the left, seem to jam and clash all over the middle canvas, and smooth into pastel curves on the right. It's by a Year Twelve, a girl Willas thinks he might know, or at least whose father he thinks he might know. He thinks it'd look wonderful in the gallery at the Water Gardens, and snaps a picture of the tag so he'll know who to ask about buying it later.

He looks around some more, wondering if the kids were told to use visual metaphors for sound as a theme or if they all just happened upon it, and wondering if this is something he and Azzie should sit down and talk about - it might be just him, but most of the pieces seem kind of _sad_ in an indefinable way - when he comes across Azzie's work, and the woman looking at it.

Azzie's piece is... It's a mobile, roughly the same proportions as the one that used to hang over her cot in the house in Oldtown, the one she used to insist they bring with them whenever they travelled, up until she was seven or eight. She used to set it up hanging from her windows when they were in Braavos or Pentos or even just in Dorne, with Ty. It had all these sweet little candy-coloured animals hanging from a pale cream frame, little lilac elephants and rose-pink flamingos and dove grey-and-silver zebras.

This is something else altogether, though. There are more things on it, for one thing, and it's not limited to just candies, and the frame is made of curlicued silver - something about that looks familiar enough that Willas intends on having a word with Azzie's beloved Aunty Sarella when next he can find her - decorated with tiny stick-on sequins in Azzie's favourite shade of blue.

It takes him a second, but he can figure out what each of the hangings are. There's a shimmering silver-blue pool hanging by a tiny, greenish-silver pipe cleaner statuette of a man, and that must be Braavos. There's a bundle of golden roses made of gauze and twisted satin thread that must be Highgarden, and a dainty golden-barked tree that has to be Goldengrove, and a perfect plaster replica of the Hightower, no bigger than Willas' ring finger, that makes the whole thing tip to one side, and...

It's Aster's homes, all of them, and he's so completely overwhelmed that he thinks it best that he not try to talk to the pretty red-haired woman who's urging as many people as she can through the door just over to his right.

By the time she makes her way over to him, her hands folded neatly in front of her, he's managed to calm himself down. He spies the staff badge hanging on the lanyard around her neck with some surprise - she doesn't look old enough to be a teacher in Aster's school, which seems to favour sensible, midde-aged parents with deaf kids, who have experience in helping the kids through the more uniform frustrations that come of their disability. This woman can't be more than twenty-five, and doesn't have the prerequisite bedraggled air of a parent of a small kid.

No rings, either, and he feels kind of silly for even looking, but hey, he's single (terminally so) and she's _very _good looking, and works at Aster's school, which is a good sign - the vetting potential employees have to undergo is terrifying, and Willas has worked for the National Gallery, who are notorious for their background checks because of all the cons who've tried to get into the vaults over the years, so he knows a thing or two about scary vetting.

"It's a lovely piece, isn't it?" she says cheerfully, gesturing to Azzie's mobile. "Aster is one of our Year Threes - I think she has real potential, don't you?"

Willas, for once, is thankful that Azzie looks more like Ty than she does like him, because apparently, this pretty woman doesn't know who he is, and that's maybe the funniest thing he's seen all year. He's a generous benefactor to the school, and he's one of the public faces of the Highgarden Foundation, when he's in the country. It's unusual for someone in the school _not _to recognise him, especially someone he overheard talking about the kids' art as if she knows something about modern art - he's kind of a big name on the art scene, after all. People who know art know the big dealers, and Willas is maybe the biggest in the city.

"Sansa Stark," she says, not offering him a hand, which is nice - it avoids the awkward few seconds of fumbling with his crutches - and instead dipping her head, a gesture he can return without any difficulty. "I teach the Year Ones - are you a parent?"

"Aster's parent," he admits, unable to keep from laughing when she claps her hands over her face in embarrassment. "No, no, don't feel bad - she looks a lot more like her mother than she does like me, and it can be hard to pick out a resemblance between a pretty nine year old girl and a nearly forty year old man with glasses and a beard at the best of times. It's caused us trouble with customs more than once. Willas Tyrell," he adds, almost having forgotten to give his name. "Azzie wouldn't let me know what she was making for the show, and she made me swear on pain of losing my cookie privileges to not ask my grandmother to find out."

"She's a lovely girl," Sansa Stark says, her cheeks still bright red. "I don't - Aster uses her mother's name at school?"

Willas shrugs - it hadn't even occurred to him for her to use his name when she enrolled, even if Tyrell was her last name on her birth certificate. They were too close to Highgarden here, and at the time, there'd been a contract out on him for liberating that cache of Ghiscari silver in Lys, and a contract out on Dad for something to do with the Greyjoys, and it just hadn't been _safe _to enrol her as Aster Martell-Tyrell. He and Ty had agreed to drop the Tyrell, and since Ty had been living in Oldtown at the time, sharing the Martells' enormous apartment on Harbour Row with Sarella, it hadn't been difficult to hide the truth until things cooled down.

"She always has," he says. "Things were complicated when she enrolled, so her mother and I thought it best not to advertise her being mine."

Sansa Stark looks at him with a crooked eyebrow and a speculative gleam in her bright blue eyes, and he feels his cheeks warm. The last woman to make him blush was Ty, way back in the day, and knowing that only makes him blush harder.

He has never, ever been so grateful to be interrupted by his grandmother.

Rhea Florent-Hightower is a force of nature, nearly seventy-three years old and still ruling the board of directors of the Lorea Hightower Academy with a lace-gloved iron fist. Willas adores and fears his grandmother in equal measure, because she also rules his _grandfather_ with that iron fist, and that alone is cause to fear her.

"Hello, Nana," he says, holding out his cheek for her to kiss - or slap, both have happened in the past - and smiling. "Lovely party."

"You've been here ten minutes, gone into one room, and spent no money at all," she chides sternly. "I thoroughly disapprove - unless Miss Stark has been keeping you occupied?"

Nana has always been under the impression that Willas' aversion to committed relationships of any sort but familial is a failing that can be corrected with forceful nagging. Lots of it. Nana's speciality is forceful but affectionate nagging, and she likes to dole it out generously. Especially to Willas, and to Pop. She says they're too alike for their own good, and that they need a strong woman to herd them. She says she's Pop's strong woman, and that one of her many hobbies is finding Willas' strong woman.

She's a character, is Willas' nana.

"Miss Stark and I were just introducing ourselves," he warns her. "She knows Azzie."

"And you know Aster loathes you using that nickname outside the house," Nana points out, poking him in the chest. "Miss Stark has been enormously helpful with the preparations for tonight's gala - doesn't she look marvellous, Willas? You should always tell a lady when she looks marvellous, you terrible excuse for a gentleman."

When Willas looks away from Nana, Miss Stark looks both dazed - a natural reaction to Nana's presence - and very lovely, in midnight blue satin threaded with silver. He hadn't noticed much beyond the lanyard around her neck and her striking hair, but yes, it's true, she does look marvellous.

"You look very nice, Miss Stark," he says, because anything else would only be even _more_ embarrassing than Nana flirting on his behalf. "What do you want me to spend money on, Nana? I was intending on enquiring about the triptych over there-"

"I need you to come to the auction," Nana says. "And you as well, Sansa - we need to break the half million mark _minimum_ tonight, Willas, and I know you're always on the lookout for something new for your collection."

"Nana, you _know_ I'm not in the market for a half-million worth of art at the moment," he says patiently. "I spent nine million just last week in Pentos-"

"Tough titties," Nana says brusquely. "I need you to drop that money, and so help me Willas Hightower-Tyrell, I will break your bad leg all over again if you do not drop that money."

He blinks at her, used to the threat but not used to her levelling it at him in front of anyone other than Pop or maybe Mum.

"Seems I'm going to be dropping half a million on art, then," he says to Miss Stark, who's laughing behind her hand.

"Don't think I've forgotten about you, Miss Sansa Tully-Stark," Nana says, pointing a shrewd finger at Miss Stark's tiny clutch purse. "I know all about your inheritances - I stood witness to your mother's mother's will, after all."

Willas shrugs helplessly to Miss Stark, and when Nana marches out towards the main hall, they follow along like ducklings.

He wonders if she'll _really_ bully him into spending half a million dollars on art he _knows_ will be next to impossible to shift - because like _hell _he wants anything that Nana likes in his private collection, her taste is _appalling_ - or if she'll calm down once he drops maybe ten or twenty thou.

* * *

><p>Nana did not calm down once he spent ten or twenty thou.<p>

Mercifully, she also bullied Miss Stark into spending a quarter of a million of her uncle's money, because Nana somehow knew that Miss Stark is one of four people authorised to buy for the Tullys' collection.

"I cannot _believe_ that you're Fat-Head Ed's niece," he says, pouring more whiskey into her glass and motioning for the bartender to bring more ginger ale. They're halfway into a litre bottle of black label, and neither of them are prepared to slow down just yet - dropping three-quarters of a million pounds on art neither of them particularly liked has given them both a deep, possibly endless thirst for anything that can make them forget that they spent three-quarters of a million pounds on art neither of them particularly liked.

And now, Sansa is one of _those_ Tullys, and one of _those _Starks, just like he's one of _those _Hightowers and Tyrells. It's one of those nights, it really is. The last time he had a night this magnificently bizarre, well, it was the first time he'd seen Ty since they left Summerhall, and hadn't _that _been the start of something wild.

"I always forget that Ed's got sisters," he says, squeezing half a lime over Sansa's glass. "You do look terribly like him, now I see you under more normal lighting."

"I always forget Margie has _three _older brothers," she counters. "I've never met you even once, and Margie and I have been friends since my first day at college. How come I've never met you?"

She's drunk, and so is he, so he doesn't feel bad for noticing that she's painfully beautiful now that she isn't nervously herding parents and benefactors in to look at the kids' art. He isn't sure he'd be quite so charmed if she didn't occasionally forget to speak aloud and revert to signing, something he apparently does himself - he never speaks aloud when he's at home, because there's no point when it's just him and Az, and that extends to most of the family, and most of his friends, too, because the few friends he has are as good as family and learned sign language as soon as it became apparent Azzie wasn't just slow to speak.

They end up signing to one another, because she can't stop giggling at something and that's making him giggle, too, and he almost forgets to speak aloud when the time comes to find a cab.

* * *

><p>Azzie is sitting beside him on his bed when he wakes up the next morning, holding out a glass of water - he wonders if her babysitter is still downstairs, and feels awful, because he'd promised Olwyn he'd be back by one, but he remembers the Citadel bells chiming four as he hobbled up the steps to the front door.<p>

_"What's up?"_ he asks Azzie, who pulls a face and crosses her arms, which he takes as a sign to sit up and drink his water like a good little daddy. That done, he tries again. _"Have I been bad?"_

_"Why is Miss Stark from school asleep in the spare room?" _she asks, and he tries his best to remember why Sansa Stark might be asleep in their spare room and finds quite a bit of last night missing.

He still remembers all that money Nana made him spend. Seems the vodka didn't do its job.

_"Nana happened,"_ he says, and Azzie's mouth twists - she, like he, adores Nana, but she, like he, is mortally afraid of the woman. She, like he, has some small survival instinct, and to be afraid of Nana goes a long way towards ensuring survival in the extended Hightower clan.

_"Is Miss Stark okay? She's really nice, Daddy."_

"_I'll go check on her as soon as I'm dressed, okay?" _he promises her. "_Maybe check your aunt Margie's room, see if she has anything that might fit Miss Stark - I don't think her dress from last night will do her this morning."_

Margie keeps a room here in case she ever needs somewhere to crash near to home without Mum and Dad breathing down her neck - which they do, and it's annoying, no matter how affectionately they mean it - and there should be some clothes of hers in there. He thinks it's probably better that he lets Azzie pick, because while he has an impeccable eye for classical art and for interior design, fashion completely escapes him. Azzie, according to Marg, has _an eye._

_"Miss Stark's dress was really pretty," _Azzie informs him. _"I hung it up for her."_

Willas' mouth goes dry at the idea of Sansa Stark not wearing her dress in his house, because he remembers thinking about how damned pretty she is more than he should have last night, and he waves Azzie on, telling her to find something long because Miss Stark is taller than Auntie Margie, and as soon as Azzie is out the door he thinks very hard about cold showers. And then he takes one, just to be on the safe side.

By the time he gets out of the shower and does his exercises, Azzie is flicking the light switch outside his room - their version of knocking on the door - and, when he lets her in, she tells him that Miss Stark said thank you for the change of clothes and the bed, and that she'll make sure they're clean before she returns them.

Willas is used to getting the brush off - the crutches put off plenty of women, and if the crutches don't do the job, Azzie weeds out the unworthy - so he's not exactly surprised. Azzie looks a little confused, which he supposes is at least partially because she, unlike him, doesn't understand the idea of a one-night stand.

Does it count as a one-night stand if they spent it on different floors? He doesn't think so, but who knows. Dating etiquette has probably changed a lot since the last time he worried about the terminology.

"_Come here," _he says, patting the bed beside him and tugging Azzie into his lap as soon as she's close enough. She's getting too big for this, really, all long, knobbly legs and arms, more his build than Ty's, but she curls up small and tucks herself in close, making sure to bring the notepad and pen he keeps on the nightstand with her.

_I don't like it when you have ladies over at night,_ she writes, because they're too close together to sign. _How come you don't have a person like Mummy has Allyria?_

Tyene and Allyria have been together as long as Azzie remembers, and it's the one thing he most regrets about his lifestyle - even when Ty is travelling, Lyria's always there at Starfall to look after Az, but when Willas has to travel for work, well, Az either has to face an two hour commute each way to school from Starfall, the craziness of staying at the Hightower with Nana and Pop, or an hour each way to school from Highgarden. He's considered hiring a live-in nanny, but the idea of a stranger raising his daughter is repulsive, and he's not sure he'd trust anyone outside the family anyways - Renly and Allyria, sure, but they don't even count anymore, not since Lyria married Tyene and Renly married Loras. They _are_ family now.

Wow. He really needs to get some friends. Like, really really needs to get some friends.

_I haven't found anyone I love the way Mummy loves Allyria_ he writes back. _Maybe someday, but not yet._

He doesn't know if that's true - he can't imagine there ever being someone else in his life, not romantically. He's happy with just Az and work and the family, he _is..._ Except sometimes, he remembers what it was like when him and Ty were together, eating breakfast before class and falling asleep together reading and yes, okay, the sex was great, too, but more than that he misses her just _being _there. He misses coming in in the evenings and having someone there to talk to and cook with, because no matter how much he loves Az, she's _nine._ And his daughter. And it's different.

Okay, maybe he wouldn't mind finding someone romantically. But Az doesn't need to know that her dad is a lonely old fart, not when he's already got the old fart bit down pat.

_Would you like me to have someone like Mummy has Allyria?_ he asks, disgusted with himself for having never thought about it - most of her friends have very sensible, normal, nuclear families, and he wonders if Azzie has ever felt strange for her home situation being, well, strange.

_You look sad sometimes _she tells him, and his heart breaks because he _never _wants her to know anything but happiness. _Nana said you got on well with Miss Stark at the gala last night._

Surely the old witch didn't.

_Did Nana text you about the gala?_

_She always does. She sends me pictures of the gowns._

* * *

><p>Willas and Aster don't think much about Sansa Stark after that, except when Aster tells him about the help Miss Stark gives them during art classes, or when Nana brings her up - or Margaery, who apparently shared a bloody room with the girl- the woman in UCKL, back in the day.<p>

Life goes on, though, as it always has. Azzie has to spend three nights in Highgarden when Willas gets called to Qohor to verify a supposed second century tapestry that turns out to be poorly forged, and an excuse to get him to the city in the hope he'd splash some of his cash.

He buys a very pretty set of vintage-style ebony luggage cases that Azzie'll love, and a strange looking amber pendant as a Solstice gift for Marg, both new and both a huge disappointment to his hosts, but other than that, he mostly just tries to get home as quickly as he can. He really does hate spending time away from Az, and he's been working late all the damn time the past few weeks, so he's barely seen her except on Sunday nights, when she gets home from her weekends with Ty. It's hurting them both, he can tell from the way she clings to him for a lot longer than she usually would when she gives him his goodbye hug when he drops her off to school on his way to work.

That's why he nearly passes out when he gets a call asking him to come into the school, because Az has been fighting. He knows she hasn't been as happy as usual these past weeks, but _fighting?_ It's just not in her nature.

Ty is there before him, because he was at a meeting in the Breaker, and traffic was hell, and she tells him that she hasn't been allowed to see Az.

"They said she _bit_ some kid, Will!" she shouts, grabbing him by the lapels and giving him a good shake. "You've had your head in the clouds ever since that last trip to Pentos, but by the gods, if this is your fault I _will _sue for custody."

He has no reply to that - he and Ty have never had a formal custody agreement drawn up, because it just makes _sense_ for Az to live with Willas during the week. He lives on Citadel Square, her school is just ten minutes away, fifteen in heavy traffic, he has the big house where she has plenty of room to play, he... No. Ty wouldn't do that. She wouldn't take Az away from him.

Would she? Has he really been that bad? Should he have seen this coming?

"Mr Tyrell, Ms Martell," someone - the principal, Doctor Merryweather, was standing in the door of her office and looked just a little disapproving. Willas stumbled when Ty released him, but he was right behind her when she stormed through Dr. Merryweather's door. "Glad both of you could come."

Az is sitting on a small chair in the corner of the room, with big, red eyes, and tear-tracks on her cheeks. He motions her over as soon as he sits down, and when she won't come, he tosses her his hankie - she smiles just a little when she catches it, and gives him a thumbs up when he tips his head in askance.

"Your daughter bit another child today," Dr. Merryweather says, and Willas begins signing the conversation to Azzie from pure habit - and he keeps doing it, even when Dr. Merryweather glares disapprovingly at his hands. Maybe _because_ Dr. Merryweather is glaring disapprovingly at his hands. He hates when people purposely leave Azzie out, just because she's deaf.

"She bit another child," Dr. Merryweather says, folding her hands on her desk and looking at him over her glasses with obvious disdain. "And she did this because the other child _supposedly_ passed some comment or other about an affair that you, Mr. Tyrell, are having with a member of our staff."

Willas looks to Azzie, who shrugs helplessly, and then to Dr. Merryweather.

"Who in the world am I supposedly having an affair with?" he asks, sincerely baffled by this all. "I- Surely not Sansa Stark?"

"So there is something between yourself and Miss Stark, then?"

"I- no, no there is not! She and I spoke a little the night of the gala in the Museum of Modern Art, and yes, we commiserated over drinks after my grandmother forced us to spend three quarters of a million pounds on ugly, _ugly_ art, but she and I are not having an _affair!"_

"Well, Aster still felt the need to defend both Miss Stark's honour and yours, Mr. Tyrell, and so she must be punished. The standard punishment for an assault on another student of this magnitude-"

"Children bite one another all of the time!" Tyene says dismissively. "I have sisters not much older than Aster who used do it all the time-"

"Did they ever bite one another so badly they needed stitches, Ms. Martell?"

Willas looks to Tyene, who seems just as horrified as he is, then looks to Aster, who seems suitably ashamed.

"I assume a suspension is involved?"

* * *

><p>"You've been sleeping with one of her teachers?" Ty demands, as soon as they've made sure Az understands that she's not allowed to leave her room except to use the loo and left her up there. "And Aster <em>knows?"<em>

"Sansa and I went for drinks _once_," Willas says, "and only because Nana did a thing - we got enormously drunk, she stayed in the guest room, Az woke me up asking why Sansa was in the house, she found clothes for Sansa in Marg's room, Sansa was gone by the time I got out of the shower. She sent Margie's clothes back freshly laundered by courier the following week. It was _nothing, _Ty, I don't even have her number."

"Then why is Az _biting people_ over this?!"

"Nana," he guesses. "She was doing everything in her power to push me and Sansa together the night of the gala, and she apparently keeps Az in the loop of her schemes - she texted Az to tell her Sansa was here, she's probably doing her best to make Az encourage me to find a wife, and she's probably told Az that Sansa's the _perfect_ wife."

Tyene slams a mug of coffee down on the table in front of him, and he watches the contents slop over the sides, dripping down her fingers.

"Az thinks I'm lonely," he says quietly. "She... She worries about me almost as much as Nana and Mum do. I don't know what to do to stop that, Ty. There's nothing I can say-"

"You find something," Tyene says. "You stop Aster from thinking about your love life. You tell your bitch of a grandmother to stop interfering with my daughter. You keep your drama and neuroses away from my daughter."

"She's my daughter too, Ty."

"And you've spent every minute since you got back from Lorath either running around the city or out of the damn country," Ty points out. "You're barely even a parent to her anymore-"

"How _dare_ you! Aster is _everything_ to me, and you know it!"

The idea that he's been neglecting Aster is something that's been weighing on him for weeks now, but gods, he was sure it was just his usual paranoia - if Ty thinks he's neglecting Az, well, it's a kick in the teeth. Does Az feel neglected? Has she said something to Ty or to Lyria?

"You need to sort your life out, Will," Ty says, wiping her hands on the teatowel. "I'm not going to see Aster grow up in circumstances as... Confused as I did. You protect her from your mess, or I'll take her out of here. It's your decision, Will."

* * *

><p>The thought of losing Azzie is all it takes for Willas to admit that yes, he might have been a little distant for the past while, but that is totally understandable given that he was nearly shot by a Greyjoy in Lorath last summer, a case of mistaken identity because Willas really <em>does<em> look like his father, and Dad has never quite shaken the price the Greyjoys put on his head, back before Az started school.

So he thinks it's totally fair that he's been a bit shaky. And yes, maybe he has been a little less present with Az, but if the Greyjoys are shooting at him just because he looks like Dad, then Az is in danger every time they go out together in public, isn't she? And he won't risk her-

"You could solve this very easily," Randa says, tapping her pen against the edge of her notebook. "All you do is increase your home security, armour your car, and hire a bodyguard for Aster. She won't be the only kid at the Academy with a suit tailing her, Will, and you know it."

It's probably not a good idea to have the only woman he's gone out with for more than six weeks (aside from Ty, of course) as his therapist, but Willas has never been very sensible about these things, and he finds it hard enough to speak openly about his feelings without it being to a stranger. Randa knows him and Azzie better than anyone else outside the family, though, and since everything in Willas' life comes back to Az, he's more than willing to put up with Randa seeing right through him if it means she keeps him steady enough to be a good father to Aster.

"And maybe put your foot down with Nana," Randa adds. "She needs to take her nose out of your affairs, Will, and you know it - you're just far too fond of the easy life to risk causing a stir in the family, and you know it."

* * *

><p>Six months later, every window in the house has been reglazed with bulletproof, shatterproof glass, the car now weighs an extra half a tonne thanks to the armour plating in the body and bulletproof glass in the windows, and Az has both a bodyguard who stands outside her classroom at school and a panic button built into her bright pink watch.<p>

And Willas' head is a lot clearer, and Nana isn't talking to him, because he told her to piss off.

It's made a difference, though, it has, he can see it already - he's getting home earlier because he's getting more work done during the day, and he's finally stopped doing all the cross-city jobs himself. He's even started delegating the foreign trips, something he's _never _done before, not in the six years since he started working for himself, and that means getting to spend more time with Azzie.

It also means relaxing so much that now, not even a year after his near-miss, he doesn't see it coming when two massive men in masks try to bundle him into the back of a van, breaking one of his crutches and cracking his bad kneecap in the sliding van door.

He's in so much pain he can hardly breathe, not until one of them jams a syringe into his thigh and injects him with some sort of local anaesthetic - his whole leg goes completely numb, and he's thankful for it, because otherwise he might have lost his mind.

"You think your daddy'll pay up?" one of them asks, pulling his head back by his hair - he can't really make out their faces, because his glasses have been crushed on the van floor, but this one has dark hair, and the other has an eyepatch, he thinks. "He did us wrong a long time ago, and we're going to get him back for it."

Greyjoys then, and he wonders how bad this will get. He's heard the stories about what they did to the creature that took the youngest of them the year before last, and while Dad's crimes against them - levying taxes on behalf of the city council, and actually insisting that they be paid, rather than just pretending the Greyjoys weren't skipping out on the port duties. Or something like that. There had been taxes involved, Willas knew, but he'd been somewhat preoccupied with Azzie starting school and all the adjustments needed to the house to make it fit for them both to live in full time at the time, and he'd missed the specifics of it all.

He probably should have asked about it after they nearly shot him in the head. Oh well.

"And don't worry about that pretty little daughter of yours," one of them says, pressing a chloroformed rag over Willas' mouth and nose (wow, old school). "We've got some nice boys ready to pick her up from school, since you won't make it."

He tries to curse them, but his head is already _so heavy, _and he can't do much more than hope Az's bodyguard is worth the money Willas pays him every month.


End file.
